Newt Gingrich: Vets Need Smartphones to Manage Their Own Healthcare

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said American veterans should be able to utilize smartphones and other technologies to create a 21st century system where the veterans, not bureaucrats, are in charge of their healthcare.

Speaking at the American Enterprise Institute on Tuesday, Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, said we owe it to our veterans to transform the current scandal-ridden, inefficient system using the latest technological breakthroughs.

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"Smartphones. Smartphone apps. The iPad. Facebook. Google," Gingrich said. "You know that these words are part of everyday life.

"We have the opportunity to create a 21st century veterans service system empowering veterans to use their smartphones to re-center services on their lives at their convenience."

He pointed to smartphone applications like ZocDoc for scheduling medical appointments and Wello for tracking vitals as innovations that would help deliver high-quality healthcare to address veterans' immediate needs while keeping costs down.